What I'm trying to figure out is
whether the world has changed or I've changed. That's rhetorical, of course. I
realize the answer is "both."

But I think politics has changed
more than I have. For example, I usually vote for Democrats, but there have been
exceptions.

I think I voted for independent John B.
Anderson back in 1980 when he ran for president against Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan. It's been so long I can't remember for sure. In any case, I sure hope I
did. I thought Carter was an awful president and Reagan seemed like an empty
shirt. I still think I was right on both counts.

And to my everlasting shame, I'm
fairly certain I also voted once for John Engler for governor. I think it was
when the cartoonish lawyer Geoffrey Fieger was his opponent. People who chase
public office for ego gratification turn me off. In retrospect, I should have
voted for him anyway.

There have been others that I've
voted for or respected.

But not lately. For years now, I
have trouble finding Republican lawmakers at any level who don't make we wince with
how extreme, intolerant and uncompromising they are. I'm sure the feeling is
mutual.

It started, I think, with Contract
With America back in '94. Remember that? At the time, it seemed so extreme and
intolerant that I called it Contract On America. Compared to the positions
Republicans take today, though, it was watered-down Coke. Ah, the good old
days.

Things changed fast after that. The
politics got more extreme, the personalities followed suit, talk radio turned listeners
into shouters, the tea party arose. Nuance, statesmanship and compromise died.

In response, I've slowly become a more
enthusiastic Democrat, to the point where I can't even imagine supporting a
Republican for any reason in any election.

Actually, that makes me a little
sad. I've always held the hopeless view that neither party holds a monopoly on
good ideas. I still think that's true, but the Republican Party's extreme, hold
no bars, give no quarter, take no prisoners, never compromise with the enemy style
of politics (thanks, Karl Rove) has inevitably caused an equal and opposite
reaction on the part of Democrats. As a result, Washington, D.C., is stuck in a
permanent spin cycle of do-nothingness.

I don't know about you, but I'm
tired of it. It feels like 20 percent of the people in this country support the
farthest-flung wing of either party. And yet, weirdly, those wings hold all the power.

The rest of us – the silent majority
– are in the middle. We have strong views but we also realize we're not always
going to get our way and that compromise is how this country was built. We'd
like our political leaders to remember that they once understood that, too, and
put the good of the people ahead of the good of their party.

But it's not happening. So maybe it's
time for us to stop waiting for them to change and start changing what we can
control -- ourselves.

I've proposed it before and I'll
propose it again: What this country needs is a third party, one whose operating
philosophy would be simply "Get things done."

In fact, to heck with it, seeing no
one else willing to do it, I hereby create this party right here, right now. I'm
calling it "The Rest of Us."